Hope's Borders
by ncfan
Summary: Fëanor sneaks out of Tirion one day, only to find that his sister has done the same thing, though for different reasons.


I own nothing.

* * *

The wind whistles in the trees, low and melodious—if Fëanáro were so inclined, he might try to sing along; he can match such a tune easily. As it is, he is in no mood for singing. It's a beautiful day, Laurelin's light waxing golden across the hills and forests of Eldamar, but he has no appreciation for that, either. Fëanáro sits, leaning back against a tree trunk, staring down the hill upon a northwest road. He winds a bit of grass in his hands and stares discontentedly into space.

He left Tirion without ceremony, without giving anyone any word of his leaving, and Fëanáro isn't sure when he will return. He does not readily grow hungry, at least not as readily as his father seems to think that boys Fëanáro's age should. All the same, Fëanáro supposes he will return home when he gets hungry, cursing all the while the lack of foresight that led to him leaving without taking any food with him. When that moment comes, Fëanáro dreads the walk back to Tirion, the walk back into what he left behind.

Fëanáro really doesn't understand it. He doesn't understand death.

Finwë explained it to him. When Fëanáro wanted to know why the other children had a mother and he did not, Finwë explained it to him. Míriel Þerindë, your mother, is dead. Her soul has departed from her body, and now resides in the Houses of the Dead, under Lord Mandos' care.

Even after that, Fëanáro doesn't understand death. He doesn't understand why she had to leave. Finwë says that she got tired after having him. Does that make it his fault? Fëanáro balks at the implication, sparks of anger firing in his belly at the thought that _he _might be responsible for Míriel having died.

He lies awake in bed, sometimes, and wonders how events would have played out, had it been he who died, and not Míriel. He wonders how it would have been had Míriel not died, knowing that he would have been happier, but not sure just _how _he would have been happier. The happiness of a situation Fëanáro has never experienced is too nebulous to be grasped in the palm of his hand, let alone in his mind.

Neither does he understand the concept of remarrying, nor does he have any fondness for it. The Calaquendi do not remarry. They do not separate from their spouses for any reason, be it because of family pressures, financial difficulties, irreconcilable differences or by reason of a growing interest in another. It is immoral to marry when you are already bound to another Quendë for all eternity; everyone knows that. Only those who live in Endóre, in ignorance, would ever countenance such a thing.

Except, perhaps, Finwë the King.

Finwë the High King over the Noldor remarried after the death of his first wife, remarried less than ten years ago. In defiance of the customs of the Calaquendi, against the better judgment of all of his councilors, and with only reluctant consent by the Valar, Finwë married Indis of the Vanyar, Indis sister of Ingwë the High King over the Vanyar and the Calaquendi. And the price of their marriage, Fëanáro is supposed to understand, is that Míriel will never be allowed to return from the Houses of the Dead. She will not return to him, for all time.

That, Fëanáro thinks, is enough reason never to forgive Indis for catching his father's eye. Enough reason never to forgive her for marrying Finwë. Enough reason never to forgive her for attempting to replace his mother, for succeeding in making many forget about Míriel Þerindë. Enough reason never to forgive Indis for thinking that she could supplant his mother in his heart. Enough reason for Fëanáro to feel guilt whenever his own enmity towards her wanes for even a moment.

That's the worst of it. That's the worst of it, that sometimes, Fëanáro wonders why he puts so much effort into hating Indis for her attempted supplanting of his mother. He looks at her, interacts with her (albeit reluctantly), and thinks that if circumstances were different, he would have no quarrel with her. If she were a Vanyarin lady who had wed a Noldo and was simply a friend of his father's, a Vanyarin lady with a daughter by another husband, a Vanyarin lady who was not wed to his father, she still would not be outstanding, but she would not be objectionable at all. Fëanáro would have no quarrel with her. He might even like her.

And he catches himself, sometimes, thinking he might come to like her, given enough time, or at least that he might come to accept her. He catches himself accepting her presence around the breakfast table, as she holds conversations with his father or members of the court, catches himself accepting her presence when she wanders about the gardens with Findis and Fëanáro happens to pass them by. She becomes something like a fixture in his mind. It becomes odd to him, not to see her every day.

He's being disloyal to his mother's memory. He knows he is. It is the height of disloyalty to Míriel to accept Indis as his father's wife, as his step-mother, as Míriel's replacement, even for a moment. Would Míriel wish for her son to forget about her? No, she would not. She would weep to see such a thing—_Perhaps she is weeping_—especially considering that Finwë has forgotten all about her, or so it seems to Fëanáro. If Míriel's own husband has forgotten her, absorbed in his fair-haired Vanyarin wife and his half-Vanyarin, deceptively Noldorin-looking daughter by her, then it falls to Míriel's son to hold and honor her memory. What is he, if he can't even do that? Nothing but a disloyal son.

But even Fëanáro, usually accepting of all challenges to cross his path, can not contend with the struggle to honor Míriel and hold Indis's influence at bay all hours of the day. It's exhausting, and he… Fëanáro must seek solitude. He must seek the countryside, the open sky, the wind through the trees and the sounds of birds singing.

So there he sits, beneath a tree at the crest of a lush, green hill, watching the northwest road, drinking in the fresh, clean air and dreading the moment when he must inevitably return to Tirion, and contend with it again.

Fëanáro frowns. He sees a small shape bobbing up and down, moving up the dusty road. The shape is green and black. As he watches more closely, he realizes that what he sees is a child with black hair, wearing a green dress. More than that, he realizes that he recognizes her.

"Findis?" Fëanáro calls, getting to his feet and starting down the hill towards her, wondering all the while what his half-sister is doing here.

He does not want to like Findis, any more than he wants to like her mother. If Indis is a usurper, than Findis is her mother's greatest weapon in usurping Míriel's place, the promise that she can bear children and yet not grow weary unto death. She had gotten with child almost immediately after wedding Finwë, Findis being the result. Even now, Indis is with child again, and showing no signs of weariness. The courtiers say that her condition agrees with her, that she is in far higher spirits than she normally is, that surely this child will be strong and healthy as her last one was.

But where Fëanáro can muster dislike and enmity for Indis, he can not do the same for her daughter. Findis is Finwë's father; she is Fëanáro's sister, if only through their father. They share blood, and Findis is simply not objectionable the way her mother is. She has no idea what she was born meaning to usurp. Fëanáro does not think that he will ever be comfortable with her. He does not think that he will ever be able to look at Findis, nor with Indis's as of yet unborn child without thinking of the younger siblings that he could have had by his mother, had things been different. There will always be ambivalence in his heart as regards to his half-sister, but he doesn't think that he will ever be able to hate her.

"Findis! Where are you going?" Fëanáro runs down the hill and down the road, quickly catching up with his half-sister—Findis may be tall for her age, but her legs are still much shorter than Fëanáro's.

Findis comes to a halt, turning to stare at her older brother, looking neither particularly startled nor particularly contrite for having been caught wandering alone at such a young age. She has a small bag hanging from her belt; the skirt of her light green dress is covered in dust. Her usually sleek hair is falling out of its braid; the gold bracelet around her wrist glints in Laurelin's light. "I'm going to Taniquetil," she says quite seriously, as though it is the most normal thing in the world for a tiny girl to travel hundreds of miles, by herself, on foot.

Fëanáro frowns at her. "You're a Noldo, Findis; say 'Oiolossë'."

She shakes her head. "It's Taniquetil," Findis insists, frowning herself.

Fëanáro bites his lip to keep from replying that she listens far too closely to her mother for a proper daughter of the King of the Noldor. "Why are you going to Oiolossë, Findis?" He does not tack on a scolding 'Why are you out here by yourself?' Given that he is also out here by himself, that seems a little too hypocritical—and a little too much like something Findis would notice and point out.

"To see our new cousin," she replies simply, and Fëanáro bites back a sigh.

For the past three months, the whole of Valinor has been abuzz with the news that Ingwë and his wife have had their first child, a daughter that her father has dubbed Almáriel. The High King of the Calaquendi has a daughter now, and Findis does indeed have a cousin, though Fëanáro does not. Almáriel is not his cousin; her aunt is not his mother. Fëanáro wonders how exactly Ingwë will explain it, if ever he takes his daughter on a visit to Tirion, how he is to explain that one of her uncle-by-marriage's children is her cousin, and one is not.

Judging from the resolute look on her face, just telling her 'Well, you can't' by itself isn't going to get anywhere in the interests of dissuading Findis from her present course of action. "Well, you'll never get there by walking," Fëanáro tells his half-sister, not quite able to force a smile on to his face. "You'd be completely grown by the time you did, and Almáriel wouldn't be a baby anymore, and she'd probably have a great many brothers and sisters by then. Likely your mother will wish to see her, and she will take you to Oiolossë with her to that effect." Findis makes a face. "_Now_ _what_?"

"Mama's going to have another baby soon," Findis confides unnecessarily, a look of deep ambivalence on her small, pale face at the thought of having a younger brother or sister.

Fëanáro knows the feeling.

Just then, Findis starts digging in the bag, a purse really, hanging from her belt. Fëanáro looks at her bemusedly as she pulls out two sticky oatcakes rather speckled with lint, and holds one out to him. "I brought oatcakes," she says with a faintly hopeful look on her face.

A few minutes later, Fëanáro is back sitting under the tree atop the hill, Findis sitting beside him. He sops his fingers to get the stickiness off, while Findis rubs her sticky hands on the grass. Fëanáro is no longer hungry, but finds that he is now rather thirsty. Oh well. That seems a far less pressing matter to him than hunger.

"Fëanáro, why don't you ever call Mama 'Mama'?"

At that question, Fëanáro wonders how angry Finwë would be if he just left Findis here and went back to Tirion on his own. The idea has a certain appeal, especially in the face of such an ignorant question as that. "Because she's not my mother," he says shortly. No one has ever explained this to Findis; Fëanáro gets a strong impression that Finwë wanted to wait until she was older. However, it seems to Fëanáro that it's high time she learned the truth. At least then she'll stop calling Indis '_our_ Mama.'

Findis's face scrunches up in confusion. This isn't something she understands, and again, Fëanáro knows the feeling. "What do you mean?" she asks uncertainly.

This, Fëanáro has no trouble explaining. He's been waiting for the day when he can disabuse his half-sister of exactly who and what Indis is to him; he's even rehearsed the words in his head. Still, those words sit bitterly on his tongue. "Lady Indis is your mother, and you and I have the same father. But my mother was Míriel Þerindë."

Findis looks more confused and uncertain than ever. "Why?"

"Because my mother died," Fëanáro says flatly.

He knows the look that comes over her face; it's the look of one who understands death even less than he does. "Why?"

"I don't know," he mutters.

At the very least, Findis is a quiet child. Her curiosity satisfied, she falls silent. Fëanáro stares discontentedly out on the golden sky, counting the stars faintly visible beneath the haze. Finwë will probably want to know why he left when he comes back to Tirion. What shall he say?

Fëanáro wracks his brains for a possible explanation to give his father. He knows he will not get into trouble, though Indis will certainly insist on scolding him, as though she has any right to do so—it always puts Fëanáro's blood on a fine boil to see her trying to act like his mother. It's not like she ever tries to punish him, anyways. All the same, it might be better to have an explanation on hand if asked for one.

What should he say, then?

The truth is certainly out of the question. The truth would probably lead to a conversation that Fëanáro very much does not want to have. He also can not say that he went out to meet a friend—Fëanáro does not have many friends, and Finwë would likely easily discover that he was lying. Saying that he decided to go exploring might work, though for some reason it feels rather insufficient.

"Fëanáro, are you angry?"

His eyebrows shoot up as he looks down at Findis, who stares at him frankly, back to her solemn self without any of the confusion or uncertainty that painted her skin before. "Angry about what, Findis?" It's his turn to feel uncertain himself; Fëanáro knows that his half-sister sometimes asks very uncomfortable questions when she's feeling pensive.

And today is no different. "Are you angry that Mama's having another baby?" Findis's coal gray eyes stare piercingly into his face, too piercingly for a child her age.

Fëanáro looks away, setting his jaw.

He's really not sure how to feel about Indis having another child. Every time he looks at her, he thinks about what could have been. Every time he looks at her, he imagines his own mother sitting or standing there, _her _belly great with child, and yet unwearied. He imagines the elation he might feel if he was going to have a sibling who was his brother or sister through both of his parents. In the face of that, the idea that he will never have a sibling who is his mother's child, and that the only siblings he'll ever have will all be Indis's children is a slap in the face. It's like a mocking thorn, digging into his flesh, never letting him grow numb or accustomed to the pain.

If she ever has a son, Fëanáro fears that that son, that half-brother of his will supplant him in his father's heart. More than Indis and Findis already have, anyways. He fears the rivals that any unborn sons of Indis will become, and is angered by them. Some golden-haired son of Indis's will make everyone forget about Fëanáro, and completely eradicate the memory of Míriel from the consciousness of the Noldor.

"I'm sort of angry," Findis admits, shrugging her shoulders.

"You?" Fëanáro snorts, knowing how much of a rarity it is for Findis to grow angry. She is possibly the child least prone to tantrums of anyone he has ever met.

A tinge of color enters her pale cheeks. "So are you!" Findis protests.

"I am not!"

"You're lying!"

Fëanáro growls and shakes his head. "And so what if I am? Tell me, sister, why are _you _angry that Lady Indis is having another baby?"

She shrugs again. "I don't know." _Of course you don't._ Findis looks at him suspiciously. "Fëanáro, you won't like the new baby better than me, will you?"

That, above all else, is the question that catches him off-guard. Findis cares about whether or not he will like another half-sibling better than her? She is less concerned about whether her parents will love this new child more than she is about whether _he _will? Fëanáro wasn't really aware that Findis really cared that much about his opinion of her. The only people whose opinion of her Findis ever really seems to have cared about are her parents. Only the criticisms of Finwë or Indis ever seem to reach her. Only their praise ever seems to affect her.

"No… No, of course not."

Maybe it's just the knowledge that Findis seems to care more about his opinion of her than she does her parents', but Fëanáro finds himself softening towards his sister. She is their father's child, after all, and not nearly as objectionable as her mother.

It occurs to Fëanáro that if Finwë has noticed that _he _is gone by now, he certainly has noticed that Findis is gone. _And certainly, they express far more worry over her being gone than they do my disappearance, _Fëanáro thinks bitterly, though with less irritation than he normally would. He tells himself that Findis is younger than him, is currently Finwë's youngest child, and his only daughter, and that of course more of a fuss is going to be raised if she goes missing than will be if Fëanáro goes missing. The bitter taste in his mouth remains, nonetheless.

Fëanáro gets to his feet, beckoning for Findis to do the same. "Come, Findis. Our father has probably noticed our absence at home." He decides that he'll tell his father that he was looking for Findis. Even if Finwë tells him that he should have raised the alarm instead of going off by himself, he still won't be angry.

They start the long walk back down the dusty road towards Tirion, Laurelin's light pouring down on them. Fëanáro feels the wind on his skin, hears Findis's footsteps beside him, and tells himself that he can face what waits for him.

* * *

Fëanáro—Fëanor

Calaquendi—'Elves of Light'; Elves living in Aman, especially during the Years of the Trees (singular: Calaquendë) (Quenya)  
Quendë—Elf (plural: Quendi) (Quenya)  
Endóre—Middle-Earth (Quenya)  
Oiolossë—'Ever-snow-white'; the most common name amongst the Eldar for the mountain (and city of the same name, in my canon) of Taniquetil; I have, however, made it a name more commonly used by the Teleri and especially the Noldor, to explain how the Elves of Middle-Earth came to call the city by the Sindarin translation of this name, 'Amon Uilos'


End file.
